number 34 • Winter 2018

The Public Interest

On leaving no child behind

Fall 2004

PASSED by Congress in 2001 and signed into law by President George W. Bush one short year after his inauguration, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is the most ambitious federal education statute in decades. Save possibly for Medicare reform, the act is the hallmark domestic accomplishment of the administration’s first term, and it is proving to be a spectacularly contentious one.